The Cost of a Christmas Carol
by Frankie McStein
Summary: Rick and Jules just wanted to sing (and do some very questionable maths) T.C. just wanted some peace. And Magnum was happy to just enjoy having his ohana around him. Christmas fluff, folks, tis that time of year


"They did this last year too!" T.C. sounded genuinely annoyed. "Who cares if five gold rings would cost less now than they would have last Christmas? What difference does it make to the song?" He crossed his arms, looking every inch the long-suffering friend he clearly felt he was.

"I mean… They seem to enjoy it." Magnum had a small smile lurking on his face; he'd probably never admit it out loud, but he liked seeing Higgins getting on so well with his family. "It's not like it hurts you." He blinked at the look T.C. gave him.

"Have you forgotten last year? Nearly two hundred messages just about swans! I lost count of how many they sent altogether."

"To be fair, a lot of those messages were about the laws in Britain about swans and the royal family." Yeah, he had read every single one of them. Weren't you listening? He liked seeing Higgins getting on so well with his family!

"I don't really care what they were talking about. I care about my phone vibrating for ten solid minutes when I'm trying to do my pre-flights." T.C.'s eyes were fixed on Rick and Higgins, so he missed the way Magnum bit his lip to stop from laughing.

"Well look, they're face-to-face! No messaging this year."

"Not yet. But what happens when one of them 'just realizes' something relevant?" He raised his eyebrows, and Magnum had to admit he had a point.

A lot of the messages from the last year _had _started with things like 'oh! But I just noticed…' And, he supposed, there had been an awful lot of messages. Thinking back, he'd actually missed two important calls because he'd taken to putting his cell on silent while driving.

"Okay, I'll agree that it can be a little much. But... " He shrugged, shaking his head a little. "What can we do about it?" He narrowed his eyes as T.C. grinned at him.

"I've already done it, brother. They're not gonna wanna even _think _about this stupid song or how much it would cost after tonight." And he held up the bottle of vodka he'd been using to spike Rick and Higgins' drinks. In his defense, he was a little tipsy himself. Magnum snorted as he realized T.C. was trying to get Rick and Higgins drunk just to shut them up. In _his_ defense, he was more than a little tipsy.

…

"Ahem! This is recording, right?" The camera shook slightly as a hand loomed over it.

"Yes, recording."

"Okay, let's go." The camera moved, the hand holding it stretching out. Rick and Higgins appeared in the frame, sitting on the floor, resting against the couch. Rick gave a quick "one, two, three!" and they both started singing.

"On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree. On the secon…"

"Wait. No, Rick, wait. Did he buy the tree? You know, from a garden centre. Or did he grow it? Because, if he grew it himself, you have to factor in the cost of the pot. And the soil. And it would need fertiliser too, I'm sure." Higgins had a solemn look on her face, and Rick nodded, looking serious. The camera tilted and was suddenly filled with a clear shot of the ceiling as Rick, apparently, googled the cost of growing pear trees and rearing partridges.

Snatches of the conversation were picked up as his hands shifted over his cell.

"Do you need two of them so they can pollinate each other?"

"According to this, you need about three years before it actually produces fruit."

"Would he do it all himself you think? Or would he hire a gardner?"

When the camera finally tipped back to show Rick and Higgins again, they were both smiling.

"Okay? One, two, three…"

"On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, two turtle doves and a…"

They both stopped at the same time and turned to look at each other.

"Would he raise the turtle doves?"

"Surely he'd need a coop for them?"

The camera tilted to the ceiling again and phrases like "DIY or labour?" came through the mic. Over two minutes went by while they debated whether or not DIY would lead to 'True Love' injuring himself and whether that would cost him in health care for treatment or lost earnings while he recovered.

"On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, three french hens, two…" Another perfectly synchronised pause, but this time they both stared at some vague point in the distance.

"Can you house french hens and turtle doves alongside each other? Will partridge live next to them?" The camera shook slightly as Rick tipped his head, considering his own question.

"Will he have planned this in advance? Or is he expanding the coop each time?" Higgins spoke slowly, as if she were trying to figure out the answer even as she was phrasing the question. "Will he injure himself again, do you think? Or will he have learnt his lesson and hired a carpenter this time?"

"Oh, he's hiring a guy to do it this time for sure." Rick sounded certain, like he, rather improbably, had experience building coops for various species of bird with his own two hands.

"On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, four calling bir…"

Rick trailed off first, turning to look at Higgins with an expression akin to that of a puzzled child. He tapped her on the shoulder as she continued to sing without him and she stopped, turning to face him with a raised eyebrow.

"What's a calling bird?" Rick clearly expected Higgins would know. And she didn't disappoint.

"Most people now agree that the 'calling birds' of today's renditions of this song would originally have been 'colly birds.' In fact, colly birds predates calling birds by over a century, and it's thought to be a reference to colliers or coal miners. Basically, he's giving her four birds that are black in colour. As to whether these black-coloured birds would have been actual blackbirds or ravens remains a matter of some debate."

Rick was nodding as she spoke, as if he was actually taking in every word. "Huh, never knew that." He smiled, looking a little dazed, but Higgins' answering smile was bright.

"On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, five gold…"

Higgins tipped her head and looked at Rick. "Actual gold? Or gold-plated?"

"Rose gold?" Rick offered. "What about white gold?"

"This is getting complicated," Higgins complained, and the camera suddenly lurched drunkenly. When it settled again, Rick and Higgins had moved to the study. Higgins was sitting at her laptop, Rick next to her in a chair he seemed to have dragged in from the dining room.

"Okay, so in this column we'll have the price I, as a person with reasonably average contacts, could expect to pay. And in this one we'll have the price that you, as someone with far more versatile contacts than the average person, would expect to pay." Higgins was tapping quickly on the laptop, and Rick seemed fascinated, leaning over her shoulder to point at things she had filled in wrong.

"Okay." Higgins sat back and Rick wrapped an arm around her shoulders as she leaned just a little too far back. "That's all five days." She looked up at him, the camera catching her profile. "What's next?"

There was silence for a minute as they both tried, and apparently failed, to recall the next line without singing.

"On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, six geese-a-laying…" The harmony, while impressive, wasn't exactly pleasing and it was a good job they only sang the one line.

"Six geese laying," Rick said slowly. "So… does she need an incubator now? Does he buy her one of those too?"

"I wonder if he offered her a stipend to cover the increased electricity costs?"

"Oh! You know, I know a guy who's an electrician. He could probably figure something out for me. That'll affect my cost by a lot, right?"

"Right." Higgins nodded as she added a few figures to the relevant columns. The camera swung wildly as Rick tried to point to one of the figures in 'his' column and, in the quick flash of the laptop screen, a few letters could be seen scattered about the numbers, as if Higgins' brain were working too fast for her fingers to keep up. Or, more likely, as if T.C. had gotten a little heavy-handed with the vodka.

"On the seventh day- Oh!" Higgins twisted to face Rick. "Swans!" A groan echoed from somewhere off to the left, followed by a peal of laughter. "Her majesty owns all of those! How on earth would he get them?"

She seemed quite upset at the thought of someone taking swans from the Queen, and Rick reached out to pet her hair carefully, clearly realising he was a lot more intoxicated than he had previously thought.

"Swans must live in other places," he said soothingly, dragging the words out just a little longer than was, strictly speaking, necessary. "I'm sure he bought them from one of those places and flew them in."

They sat in silence for a few moments.

"Does that mean he would have to pay quarantine costs?"

"Would they need a passport?"

Rick objected to Higgins putting a zero in both columns for 'animal passports.'

"Are you telling me you are incapable of obtaining falsified travel papers?" Higgins sounded shocked.

"Well, yeah, of course _I_ could. But you're meant to be the average Joe, you know. And they can't just rustle up fake passports."

"They can't? How on earth do they manage when they need to make a quick exit?" Higgins had a thoughtful expression on her face, and Rick shrugged.

"I think they do it legally."

There was another silence as they both contemplated this.

"On the eight day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, eight maids a-milking…"

Neither of them spoke for a second.

"Rick?" Higgins waited for him to nod. "Do you think he provided the cows too?" She almost pouted. "The vet's bills will be astronomical. Can a private person get pet insurance for cows do you suppose? Or is that limited to dairy farmers?"

"I know a vet who owes me a favour, I won't need insurance." Rick seemed to be leaning rather heavily on the back of Higgins' chair, the camera held at an awkward angle to fit them both in. It didn't seem to occur to either of them that they really shouldn't be bothering to film anymore.

"On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, nine ladies dancing, eight maids a…"

"What's a dancing lady? Like, a real, proper lady like you? Who knows about titles and forks and stuff? Or people who dance who happen to be girls?"

Higgins eyes narrowed dangerously as she considered his words. "Are you implying that I am for sale? Because I'll have you know that my work in security was contracted and fully above board. It may have been a little… grey, but I was never a mercenary." The offended look melted off her face as Rick rubbed her back.

"Nah, never even considered that. Not you."

"So does he have to pay for their costumes too? I mean, as I understand it, you can't dance professionally in jeans and a t-shirt."

"Not sure I know anyone who could help with that. I might have to pay full price." Rick's face was a picture, shocked and dismayed as the click of computer keys sounded.

"On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, ten lords a-leap...ing…"

"Jules? How many Lords does England have? Can you spare ten?"

Higgins pursed her lips, evidently trying to give the matter some serious consideration. After a few seconds a smile spread over her face.

"We have hundreds in Parliament. And we can definitely spare them. In fact, I can think of a few people who would happily pay _you_ to get them out of their seats."

A voice spoke up, asking if she was sure she should be recording herself saying things like that, but neither she nor Rick reacted, happily working their way through the next line instead.

"On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, eleven pipers…"

"We have a problem."

"Are we just getting the pipers or do we have to get pipes too? And what sort of pipes? Panpipes? Bagpipes? I… I'm not sure I want eleven bagpipes, Jules."

"Okay," she said soothingly, "I'll make yours panpipes."

The voice from before was back, asking if they realised they weren't actually buying all these things. But it was ignored again.

"On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, twelve…umm…"

"Drummers drumming," came the quiet voice again, apparently resigned to its role as ignored voice of reason.

"Right. Drummers…" Higgins was staring at the laptop screen now, the light from the screen highlighting her and Rick as he moved to lean against her shoulder. "Do drumsticks come with drums as standard?"

"I think you have the option to buy them separately."

"But do we have to?"

The camera tipped and swayed as a hand slowly reached past it, over to Higgins hand and caught it, gently lifting it away from the mouse pad.

"You know this isn't a shopping list, right?" Magnum let go of her hand to wrap his arm around her shoulders and lift her from the chair, Rick swaying slightly as his support was taken away from him.

"But...I need to finalise all this." She reached back for the laptop but Magnum used his free hand to catch hers.

"Robin doesn't want you spending his money on this."

"Clearly he does, Magnum. Look, it's all right there." She tugged against his hand, trying to gesture to the screen.

He held on and carefully didn't smile. At least, not while she was looking at him. "Think about it logically, Juliet. What would we do with all those pipers?"

"Music is good for the digestion. Clearly Mr. Masters is concerned about... our...diets?"

"Where would we even keep them, Higgy?"

"It's Hawaii. They can sleep on the beach."

"No."

"No?"

"No. And the dogs would eat each and every one of those birds. We could never keep them here."

"Now that's just nonsense. The lads would never eat anything I didn't tell them was food."

"Last week, they ate two of my belts."

"... what's your point?" Her expression was one of pure innocence, and Magnum's lips twitched as he fought valiantly against the laugh trying to escape.

"Come on. You can order it all in the morning, girl." The video cut to black on the image of him pulling her gently into his side and leading her over to the couch.

In the morning, rather than wanting to order every item on the spreadsheet, Higgins would be hopelessly confused at what on earth it all was, especially as half the entries in what should have been the price list didn't seem to relate to anything at all. Magnum would ask Rick for his cell and pull up the video. Higgins and Rick would watch, and Rick would insist it was faked, only to then be forced to admit that Higgins was the only one who could possibly have pulled it off.

Higgins would watch the whole thing in silence before demanding it was immediately deleted. Magnum would let her watch as he hit delete, not telling her that he and T.C. both already had copies saved.

Of course, Higgins ended up with a copy herself; hacking Magnum's Google account and copying the file was the work of a minute. And she made sure to send a copy to Rick too, for safekeeping. She'd probably never admit it out loud, but she liked it.


End file.
